Walker Running For Lieutenant Governor To 'Save The State'

David Walker at the opening of the McKinney/Walker campaign headquarters on Post Road, Fairfield.

David Walker at the opening of the McKinney/Walker campaign headquarters on Post Road, Fairfield. (Stan Godlewski / Special to The Courant, Hartford Courant)

DANIELA ALTIMARI, altimari@courant.com

BRIDGEPORT — David M. Walker is an accountant who has run three federal government agencies and two not-for-profits and spent 20 years in the private sector.

He is now seeking a job in Hartford that has no constitutional authority except presiding over the Connecticut Senate and serving as a backup in case the governor resigns or dies.

"I've had better titles,'' Walker conceded.

Yet Walker views the position of lieutenant governor as an important one, despite its limitations. "I'm running to try to help save the state,'' he said. "It's tragic that Connecticut has gone from a leading state to last place in too many categories.''

Walker is one of three candidates for lieutenant governor competing in the Aug. 12 Republican primary. He did not win the GOP endorsement at the party convention in May but received enough support to qualify for the primary.

On his campaign website and on the stump, Walker, 62, sounds more like a management consultant than a traditional politician. He sprinkles his speech with the jargon of the business world, describing himself as a "turnaround specialist" and a "problem-solver." He speaks in bullet points.

"People are starved for three things: truth, leadership and solutions,'' Walker told members of the Republican town committee in Bridgeport on a cool July night.

Later, he offered his three prescriptions for strengthening Connecticut's economy. "You must reduce spending, not freeze it,'' he said. "Secondly, you must reopen the bargaining agreement with state employees … and thirdly, you must rationalize the size and scope of government."

The lieutenant governor's role, aside from the duties specified in the state Constitution, is shaped largely by the governor. Walker has formed an alliance with Republican gubernatorial candidate John McKinney but says he could work with McKinney's opponent, Tom Foley, who is the front-runner, according to polls.

Walker has big plans for the lieutenant governor's job. He hopes to create an accountability office in Connecticut modeled after the federal Government Accountability Office, which he led as U.S. comptroller general from 1998 to 2008.

Former Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele, a Republican who endorsed Walker, called him "by far the most qualified candidate." Walker's two opponents are Rep. Penny Bacchiochi of Stafford and Heather Somers, former mayor of Groton.

Walker is an outspoken advocate of core Republican principles, espousing smaller government and individual freedom and responsibility. He received a qualified A rating from the NRA recently and defines himself as a big supporter of the Second Amendment.

Walker, who was born in Alabama, the oldest of three boys, was not always a Republican.

"The first few years of my adult life, I was a Democrat," he said. His parents were Democrats, and in those days, conservative Democrats had a lock on the South. "If you weren't a Democrat, you were disenfranchised, because the elections were in the primaries."

But the Democratic Party drifted left in the 1960s and by the time Walker reached his 20s, he had had enough. "I saw how liberal the party was and I said, 'I can't go with this,' so I changed and became a Republican," he said.

The Republican Party also changed, moving further to the right on social issues and squeezing out the more moderate Northeastern Republicans in the mode of Nelson Rockefeller and Nancy Johnson.

"The last so-called moderate Republican congressman from New England lived in this house,'' Walker said, sitting in the den of the handsome Colonial-style home in the Black Rock section of Bridgeport that he and his wife, Mary, purchased from former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays about four and a half years ago.

Walker's opposition to the gun control measures recently enacted in Connecticut, coupled with his belief that marijuana should not be legalized, suggests a socially conservative streak. On another hot button issue that is likely to be raised in Connecticut under the next governor — a bill offering terminally ill patients the right to seek a physician's help in ending their lives — Walker stands firmly with opponents of the measure.

But he says it is the economy, jobs and the fiscal health of state government that will shape this election. "A lot of the social issues, while people can feel very strongly about them on either side, they divide people," Walker said. "We're in condition critical right now and we've got to focus on what matters most."

Walker changed his party affiliation from Republican to independent when he was under consideration for the comptroller's job. He said he would have happily stayed unaffiliated if he had not decided to run for office.

"Labels are an impediment," Walker said. In 2010, he helped found No Labels, a national group that aims to quell hyper-partisanship in Congress.

Walker, the father of two and grandfather of three, said he has been recruited to run for elective office several times in the past, but has always said no.

"We love our state, but we're not from here and we don't have family here,'' Walker said. "Knowing what we know about the financial condition and competitive posture of Connecticut and given our stage of life, we had two choices: Do what 95 percent plus of people would do — and what some in my family would prefer that I do — and that is move south, either to Florida or South Carolina.

"The second choice is to try to fight and help turn around the state,'' Walker said. "And that's what I've chosen to do with the support of my wife. So we're going to give it a shot and hopefully, merit will matter."